Category: Barely Home Companion - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

Barely Home Companion - 3 Tenors Sing Barney (Sep '04)

9/22/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

Man, it's only the second week in and I'm already submitting recycled material. I had this piece sitting in my pile for quite some time. I even attempted to re-work it as a Christmas sketch (which I also submitted). But the Three Tenors was big at this time and Barney was still huge. Both were Public Broadcasting properties, so, why not? But, it was probably too TV for GK. I'm he probably didn't even know who Barney was (and the quick aside to Our Gang comedies didn't help much). It's just a silly bit of musical fluff, and I'm not shocked it didn't make it. I had it really to go the week after the State Fair show, not realizing the season hadn't begun yet, so I had to sit on it until 9/25/04. So, enjoy:

3 Tenors Sing Barney

Barely Home Companion - Peach Pie (Sep. '04)

9/15/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

PHC did a special live show from the MN State Fair in 2004, two weeks before the season was to begin. State fairs means foods and contests. While I'm not sure what triggered this sketch specifically, it is a typical "contrarian"-type sketch that I often wrote. Basically, it was take a simple premise, have someone defy it and attempt to act like it's fine. So, having a peach pie without peaches seems a no brainer. Tying the sketch to the season premiere seemed be a way to attract enough attention to get accepted. The show passed on it. It's still a fun little bit. We would try again in two weeks, when the season actually got under way.

Peach Pie

Barely Home Companion - Summer Turnover (June '04)

6/30/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

So, this was going to be the last show of the 2003-04 season and as I started to re-read this piece after 20-odd years, I thought it was going to be a goof on Keillor and his show, since I was featuring his fictional writer, Sarah Bellum. Back in the early days of TV, when a show went on summer hiatus, they would often replace it with a "summer series." It could be a variety show, a British import, or some left-over program that didn't make the cut. It starts with that as the premise. Maybe I'll come up with some wacky-sounding replacement radio shows with punny names. But that premise gets hijacked by a missing paranoid programing director. Then this sketch really takes an sudden turn. Evil dictator Suddam Hussein had been captured and as summer approached, they were setting up his trial for war crimes and general evil-ness. So, that was in the news and my little PHC parody became a Hussein sketch. No goofy radio shows. No (major) digs at PHC. No sly in-jokes about my stuff never getting selected. No summer cliff-hangers. Disappointingly, it didn't get selected. So, prepare to witness...

Summer Turnover

Barely Home Companion - SpaceShipOne (June '04)

6/23/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

Back before Bezos, Musk and Branson were all racing to be the first billionaire in space, there was something called SpaceShipOne. It was the first movie into space by a private company. It launched a sub-orbital flight the week the show broadcast, so I wrote up a sketch. The idea of private companies going into space is something I've been mocking since my Galaxy Rangers days. I wrote a NY Post op-ed piece about it when they launched John Glenn back into space. As my character, Zoot Martin, the head of Space Peace, says in Galaxy Rangers, "people have a habit of mucking up anyplace they go, and that includes space." Arnold Davies is the forerunner of today's space privateers. And they were as annoying as the rapidly spreading cell-phone users of the day. I actually submitted this sketch the same week as my House of Tea sketch, and it's one declining times I submitted more than one sketch in a week this far into my run. But the Seattle House of Tea and the Space launch were both topical and had to be addressed. Not as much as I thought they did, however, since neither made it to air.

SpaceShipOne

Barely Home Companion - Hal's House of Tea (June '04)

6/16/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

This sketch is kind of interesting to me. Obviously, I took the premise I've used so many times before, the super-specific store that sells one thing. But the show was playing in Seattle this week and I did a twist on it. What if the guy who opened the store recognized his folly? What if, in the city of coffee shops and Starbucks, Hal thought he'd go all-in on a tea shop? I thought it really worked. And I love the tag line on it. But I'm the only one that thought so. Anyway, welcome to the House of Tea, steeped in desperation.

Hal's House of Tea

Barely Home Companion - Also in Hollywood (June '04)

6/9/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

I had forgotten about this item. Naturally, the show was on the road, broadcasting from Hollywood. And, as usual, I attempted to create a bit that was geared to the location. And I wound up writing a sequel to my "The Hawaiian Rule" bit that had been used as the basis for the sketch performed on the show the back in 2002. I tried to hit the impressions the show had used before and then it morphed into a President Bush Jr. bit, since Bush had practically become a series regular at this time. I can only imagine what PHC would have made of Trump had the show continued (beyond their shared habit of harassing women). And with that said, here's the rejected sketch, "Also in Hollywood"! Action!

Also in Hollywood

Barely Home Companion - Glimpse into Tomorrow (Jun. '04)

6/2/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

This sketch featured out old friend inflation. Remember when gas prices got bad and we had to vote Carter out of office? Then gas prices rose under George W. and everyone was cool with it? Then supermarket prices started going up and there was nothing to do but cut taxes for the wealthy and invade Iraq. Well, when I read that milk at the time cost more than gasoline, it reminded me of the old conspiracy theory about how Big Oil destroyed plans for a car that ran on water. And that's always the thing, people are trying to invent the future but really have no idea what it'll take to do that. The future is just going to shape itself and all we can do is attempt to solve the problems of the present. No need to drag the future into it. But that's getting far afield from the point of the sketch, which is...better luck next time! Similar to the rejection I got on it...

Glimpse into Tomorrow

Barely Home Companion - Face the Conundrum (May '04)

5/19/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

PHC's "Later on most of these Public Radio Stations" bits were very freeing. It was a real chance to jump out of the context of the show and do anything. I got to do it on my first time out, Abbott & Othello. Around this time, I was working on a pilot series, "Where's the Party?" a talk show, where the premise was a swinging party at a rich guy's penthouse; Playboy After Dark meets Fernwood Tonight. And at one point we were struggling with a way to do actual sketch-sketches and not just "party bits." Someone mentioned a TV set. A party goer could be in a corner watching TV and we could do anything on that TV; a news parody (which I did), sit-coms, sports, anything. It was our launching pad out of the single set. And could be filmed and presented as such (ala Monty Python) verses the taped party scenes.

Anyway, this sketch was a re-working of some jokes that I had kicking around that I never quite found the right set-up for. Maybe this wasn't it either, but it appealed to my contradian side. Also, I think the idea of parodying those Sunday morning news shows as they devolved into these bizarre attempts at "gotcha" attitudes and odd "what-if" scenarios questions. I think it just never jelled enough for PHC's purposes and they neglected to use it.

Face the Conundrum

Barely Home Companion - 30th Anniversary (May '04)

5/12/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

What an epic sketch this was. I hit every character, every callback, every cliche of a show celebrating an anniversary I could. Perhaps I was too much the outsider (EVEN AFTER ALL THIS TIME) for him to accept the idea of me submitting something like this. Maybe making fun of his bread & butter wasn't the wisest move. Maybe it was too pop-culture-y. Or worse, too dated pop-culture-y (Tiny Tim jokes? Really?) Maybe sending an incomplete sketch was undercutting myself...

Apparently there's a reel missing between PHC in Space and GK's finish. It looks like I was going to write something there, but it just goes from GK line to GK line.

I don't know how I forgot to put in sound effects jokes. The penguin joke is one GK told often on the show. The voice impressions were all regulars. It was a sketch that had to cover a lot of ground and I think it worked, but what do I know?

30th Anniversary

Barely Home Companion - Us Guys at the Shore (June '04)

5/12/2023

From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...

Every so often, PHC would travel to Ocean Grove, New Jersey, which is part of the Jersey short. They would do the show from this huge, old auditorium built right on the beach. Again, since he was approaching my neck of the woods, I pulled out a Jersey shore sketch that I had written. I have written about this sketch before as it was preformed by the comedy troupe Style Without Substance. It's a funny sketch and did well in front of audiences. It was a long shot getting PHC to do it. It's not appealing to his demographics at all. And GK doesn't strike me as a beach-guy. But, it was the Jersey shore (I changed the title from "at the beach" to "at the shore"), it was funny and I pulled out the sight gags for radio, so why not?

Us Guys at the Shore

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